


Clearest Blue

by BlueColoredDreams



Series: Hard to Starboard [4]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Brief suicidal thoughts, Canon Compliant, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Light Angst, Lucretia-centric, Mentions of Canonical Character Death, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Canon, References to Depression, Relationship Negotiation, Spoilers for ep.69
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-18 01:06:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11863464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueColoredDreams/pseuds/BlueColoredDreams
Summary: In the best world, it ends like this:By starting over.





	Clearest Blue

**Author's Note:**

> Hot damn the thing I wanted sort of happened. I'll take it.  
> This is a deliberate foil piece to Salt. It ended up a little different than I'd originally imagined, but hey! That's how it works.  
> Title from [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpFXXPruuqU) song by Chvrches.  
> Of note: this is not actually part of QE's timeline, despite loosely referencing it in regards to Lucretia's relationship with Maureen. I just happen to have a _very specific_ set of headcanons that I'm probably far too attached to.

The party, honestly, had been Lup’s idea. But like most of Lup’s ideas, it had caught on like wildfire. Not that it was a hard sell, but she’d had a role to play—it’d been so long since she’d gotten Lup’s puppy-dog eyes that it was just so easy to pretend to keep writing her letter, and go  _Well, I don’t know_ ,  _I’m not sure we have the capacity for that right now. I’d need to know more than just ‘let’s have a shindig’, Lup._

And Lup had never heard her Director voice before, either, and bless her, she thought it was a serious refusal. She’d gone off for a sulk and came back with at least twenty different proposals.

And then it had ballooned from just a small thing, to a Bureau thing, to a Bureau and friends thing, and finally, to a full, formal ball held on the newly rebuilt quad, with attendance including everyone from old employees to even the Lord of Neverwinter himself.

In theory, the ball was to celebrate the new rebranding of the Bureau—but Lucretia recognizes it for what it is: a celebration for new beginnings, for a chance to start again. For the farewells as everyone splits off for their own separate missions, for the people who couldn’t make it—Johann, Maureen, Captain Bain, Brian—the people who had fallen in the quest for this happy end.

It hadn’t been an easy feat, but Brad had risen to the occasion, overjoyed to be planning something that wasn’t the umpteenth office behavior lecture for a certain set of Reclaimers. He has her choosing superlatives out of a hat to do something nice for their employees (“more fair than voting, honestly!”) and signing off on music and food costs and, truthfully?  Thank all the gods for him, because it’s honestly more bureaucratic paperwork than she’s ever liked.

(Also, she’s so thankful that he handled the conversation about how it probably isn’t prudent to invite literal gods to parties.)

Lup is busy becoming something else, something other. And so is Barry. They’ve been in and out of discussions with Taako and Kravitz all week, now that Lup is completely flesh and blood once more.

She knows, deep in her heart, that she’s being left behind again, left to deal with the aftermath of a decision that impacts her, but she had no say in.

(The irony is not lost on her, and she bites back the hurt because she does not have the  _right_  to feel left out anymore. But that doesn’t stop it from hurting.)

Her time with Lup has been over for a long time, and she’d never allowed herself to think about what would happen if— _when_ — Lup came back.

Truthfully, she’s shocked Lup wants anything to do with her: 

She as good as murdered Barry. She accepts that, knows what she did was the catalyst for his original death. She won’t ever try to explain it away—they all know the score, they all know the story, and they all know the end. The fact that he even speaks to her is a gift, that he stuck around after the battle was done, that he stays on Base while Lup’s body was reforming, while they prepare to move onto the next phase in their lives. He could have gone planetside, taking Lup and Taako (and the others, most likely) with him.

Whatever they had once had, their tentative relationship balanced on the ballast of Lup’s overwhelming love, is gone. She sees it in his face, sees it in the way he looks at her, in the silence he gives her when she  _does_  try to tall to him alone, just once. He’d shaken his head and walked away, leaving her with a mouthful of half-spoken words and a disappointment in her that spread like ink in water.

There were times she loved him, loved him whole and true, because Lup  _adored_ him and that sort of love was contagious. Because he was earnest and kind and loved Lup so much that he felt no insecurity in the ebb and flow of Lucretia and Lup’s relationship.

There was a world, once, where he’d made a self-cooling cloak for her, because she couldn’t bear the heat of the planet. There was a world where they had been stranded and separated from the others, and he’d held her hand in the dark because they were both frightened. She’d died in his arms, there. She’d watched him die a few times too, held his hand because Lup was away, let it go slack in her fingers as he billowed out of his lifeless body, shrouded in scarlet fire.

In the end, though, none of that mattered. It didn’t matter how many times Lup insisted on group sleepovers or how many times they’d held each other when they were sick or dying or just plain scared. None of it mattered in the slightest.

When the line was drawn, it was Barry and Lup. It was always, always, always Barry and Lup; Lup and Barry; Barry and Lup over and over until they blurred into one existence whose breath she stole away.

Maybe, in a different life, in a world where Lup never disappeared—never  _died—_ he would still consider her in their former closeness.  

But he’s spent a decade thinking she wanted him dead for good—and for a bit, she wanted that too.

She spent that time just as afraid of his wrath as he was of hers: Imagine, being afraid of Barry!

If someone had told her that, twenty, thirty years previously, she would have laughed.

But sometimes, she still wakes in a cold sweat, reliving the fear of a single finger pointed at her in her hallway; Robbie awash in a red glow; Barry’s form rising out of him as he fell to the marble hallway. She thought for a second that maybe Barry had killed Robbie, and she’d screamed, an awful sound that was followed by a spell so strong she’d been bowled over by it, using the full force of her Relic against a man she considered her family, a man she’d—they’d never quite been lovers, not really, but they’d lain together, they loved the same woman, they’d shared something intimate—and she’d…

He’d gotten up close on her, energy boiling off of him as he flickered with fear and hurt and anger, magic raising the hairs on her neck, and he’d whispered to her, reaching for her wrists:

_Lucretia, leave well enough alone—don’t you think you’ve done enough?_

The terrible echo in his voice made her shake, and then heat overcame her as his spectral hand passed over her own, lightening crackled against her skin and through her bones to her heart, which flipped and everything went red, red, red, then black as pain filled her like water.

The terribleness had dropped from his voice as she felt herself fall—just his voice, just her name, startled and worried, and she hurt so much, it hurt, she hurt.

And when she woke up, he was gone, but she still heard him, tracking the boys, speaking with them and she was  _scared_. She was terrified of him, of what he symbolized—the first failure in a long string of them— and she’d set up measures to keep him from her. A holy symbol so strong it would rip him to shreds if he managed to make his way back up to her.

There’s no coming back from what happened between them. Maybe they can reform their friendship, but after that?

He is not going to wait for her to settle herself with Lup any longer than he already has. And because he will not wait, Lucretia knows that Lup will go with him, as she always had. She won’t stop to think that Lucretia might have unfinished business with her, won’t stop to think that leaving could hurt her. She and Barry will leave, and it will be just like before.

The note was not for her. The eventual containment of the gauntlet had not been for her. Lup hadn’t even meant the same thing, then when Lucretia had held her in the dark, feverish with fear and desire and a need to bind Lup to her, to ground her to life. Her plan had not been Lup’s plan, and Lup’s plan had been none of theirs.

In the end, though, their plans had not been what saved them. Lucretia had never been the bulwark she’d wanted to be.

Which begs the question:

What does she do now? What does she do now that their century-long journey is done? Now that she’d, in the most roundabout way possible, saved them all?

Now that she’s, of all things,  _forgiven_? Not absolved, no, but forgiven and understood.

She’d never thought forgiveness was possible, not after the things she had done. But even Taako had stretched a hand back out to her when she’d reached for them, had suggested the third option. Even Davenport had worked with her when the ship had threaded through the Hunger.  And Lucas had sought her out, and given her a small box of Maureen’s effects, promising in that offhanded way of his to keep in touch, to make sure his mom was proud of him.

Gods, even  _Robbie_ (Pringles?) had forgiven her!  Offered to stay on even when she’d offered him a sizable severance package to make up for locking him up in solitary confinement.

How had she managed  _that_? How had she managed to earn the kindness, the forgiveness, of all these people?

All she saw in her part of the story was someone pitiable: Someone who betrayed her friends for her own ends, and then failed spectacularly. A liar and a fake and a villain. A failure of a martyr. 

But, all these people had seen something else in her. A leader, a friend, a hero. Someone they’re willing to give a second chance to.

She’d never thought of the after before.

Truth be told, she never thought there  _would_  be an after for her; never thought there’d be a second chance in all of this for her.

She’d never dreamed that she would live through the sealing, live through the remembering. There had always been two futures that she saw for herself:

One where she dies, because that was always a very distinct possibility. Magic that powerful, a force that strong—it’s  _so_  easy to overextend yourself and burn out in the overload. The first time she ever channeled a relic, she’d been hoarse, dizzy, and sick for days.

She had been prepared to die doing this, to tough it out long enough to see it through all the way, and then let it finish her.

And if she didn’t die from the magic, well…

She always thought that her friends would simply kill her. Kill her for what she’d done, kill her for violating their minds, their wishes. For taking them from their family, from their lives, from their loves.

That, too, was a real danger, one that she’d stared down, right into Taako’s pallid face and livid eyes as the umbrastaff—Lup’s own weapon (and tomb)—shook in his hands. And Magnus, pointing that ridiculously overpowered sword at her.

Yes, she’d been ready to die by their hands. By their anger and their grudges, because if their own hands hadn’t taken her life, if she was left in the sidelines, if after whatever happened happened, they just… ignored her?

Well, she knew she couldn’t bear that. And so, she had a spell for that.

A spell that sits heavy on her tongue and in the back of her mind, because now that she’s learned it, the idea of it haunts her. She wants to dredge its knowledge out of the back of her mind when it swims into her thoughts, a gentle whisper as she sits in her office late into the nights, shifting through the damage reports and the news and all of it, guilt and remorse churning with hope in her gut.

She wasn’t prepared for this, for living. It’s new and it’s wonderful… and it’s scary. Sometimes she just stops. She just stops because it’s too much, too soon, too foreign to her, a feeling she was well acquainted with from the beginning of their century’s journey.

The world she fought so hard for is open wide before her, like a brand new journal. And she is the ink, just waiting to be put onto the pages. There’s so much she could be doing, there’s so much that it’s like a tide that overwhelms her, unmooring her from the anchor that was her guilt.

There’s so many directions she could take, so many things that she could help with, do for the world around her—all she has to do is choose.

But before that, Lup:

Lup is here, Lup is back, and Lup is flesh and bone again, and Lucretia has to settle all her old ghosts before she can go out and greet new ones.  

There is so much she wants to say to Lup, before she leaves. She wants to tell her so much before she’s gone again.

She wants to tell Lup about how lonely she’d been, wants to tell her how hard it was to track the Relics and how hard it was to siphon the Light out of them, wants to explain about her body, so prematurely aged in Wonderland, wants to tell her the story of the Bureau and how it was built from the ground up. About the things she had to do, decisions she had to make, about the bone-deep ache in her body that is all that remains of her some nights.

She wants to tell Lup about the wine she likes, about the shops in Neverwinter where she orders her dresses, about the food in this plane. She wants to show her the view from the tallest places on the base, show her the glass spheres, pick her up and spin her in her arms and let herself be awash in the joy of Lup, alive and real once more.

More than anything, she needs to tell Lup about that soft part of her heart, still raw and tender—it hasn’t even been a full year yet, and Lup is alive again and waltzing in and out of her office like she owns it. Sits on her desk and kicks her legs until Lucretia has to reach out and stop her.

And the words, the hope, the hurt, the guilt, the grief, it builds up in the back of her throat and chokes her.

Lup kisses her cheek, holds her hand when they walk the campus. And Lucretia, she can’t bear to stop her. The warmth is comforting, soft, and what she wants. But as much as she loves Lup—she loves Lup so much that it’s like a tide, coming up to sweep over her head—the motions hurt.

She’s not able to vocalize why, quite yet. She’s never really been able to talk about it and no one who ever knew made her. They tried to spare her that hurt, but instead it closed and festered inside of her.

There’s a box tucked in a drawer in her bedroom that holds a moonstone bracelet and a ring of simple silver with a piece of crystalline tourmaline in its center.

Lup needs to know about that box. Before any of Lucretia’s wants, there is the need—there is the information that she owes to Lup. Maybe that she owes to all of them, but to Lup, first and foremost.

She practices saying the words in the mirror each morning and night, as she gets dressed. She sits at the vanity in her room, tracing her fingers against the shape of the paint she’d used on the pocket portrait of her, and she tries.

“I love you,” she starts.

“I missed you,” she continues.

“I hated you for a long time,” she adds. “Blamed you.”

But none of it is right.

“I was alone,” she tries again.

But that’s not true. She wasn’t alone.

“While you were… away… while everyone was away, there was someone I cared for.”

But that sounds so impersonal, and it doesn’t cover the breadth of her emotions.

“Lup, your relationship with Barry takes precedence,” she whispers, but she knows that the words would spark Lup’s ire.

“I’m going to do good things for this world, because this is the home we chose. Wherever you go, I will be okay here,” she murmurs.

And it’s true, but it feels so lonely to say, because she wants them in her life, now. She wants to hold Lup’s hand, to kiss her cheek and laugh with her. To lean their foreheads together and whisper in the dark.

But she does not want to be Lup’s lover again, she thinks. Not yet, not quite yet.

She’s never given herself a chance to think about what happened, and how it impacted her. Her hand still aches at times where she’d broken it in her frustration, but other than that… she just… sealed it all up inside, much like she’d made herself not think about the pain of losing Lup, then losing them all.

She just… doesn’t know how to talk about herself anymore. But she has so much she wants to say! Words that had never formed upon her lips, thoughts she barely lingered on, things she never put to paper.

But she hasn’t written in years, and she stopped talking about herself just as long ago.

The days come and go and each set of words feels more and more wrong.

Lup comes and goes, too, pulling everyone into her spinning, gleaming orbit, and Lucretia is _so_ fond of her. She’s so painfully fond, but seeing Lup is seeing a ghost twice over, and it makes her pause. Makes her freeze; makes her ache.

The party draws closer, closer.

People start arriving up in the glass orbs, people she only knows in passing, from field reports and the stories the boys told her after each mission, who come to her office and are given tours and laugh uproariously with the rest of her family during dinner.

Lup plops herself down beside Lucretia at the long table that she sits at alone to eat during formal events—there used to be more people who sat beside her, but they are either dead, busy, or she’s allowed them to wander away from their posts and mingle. She doesn’t much mind sitting alone and watching. Once upon a time, it used to make her writhe with loneliness; it used to give her a sense of otherness that couldn’t be shaken.

Now, she watches like a teacher would, fondly proud. It isn’t like people can’t come up and sit with her anyway—as evidenced by Lup reaching over and snatching food off of her plate before she’s even properly sat herself down.

“Lup, really?” Lucretia sighs.

“Mm’yep,” Lup says with a mouthful of potatoes.

“Wouldn’t you rather be sitting with the others?”

“Nope,” Lup says succinctly. “Barry’s talkin’ to Nerdlord McGee over there, and Ango’s soakin’ up all that nerd talk, bless him. And I don’t know any of those people with the other chucklefucks, and they all know  _me_  which—understandable! Who doesn’t want to know me?—but… Lucy, it sort of freaks me out sometimes. It’s  _too_   _much_.”

“Yes,” Lucretia agrees softly. “I understand that, at least.”

Lup’s hand finds her knee under the table. Lucretia swallows and looks at her; Lup’s face is the same as it always was, done up with shimmering golds and her mascara has flaked after the day’s work, speckling her freckled cheeks with black. Her hair is exorbitantly pink, and Lucretia’s heart seizes in her throat.

Ten years ago, Lucretia would have traded the whole world for this simple sight. Lup, shimmering and bright, grinning over at her like a cat about to catch the canary.

She attempted to trade the whole world for this, and instead, she got this and  _more_.

“Lup,” she says softly, “Would you like to get ready for the party with me? I have… a quite expansive wardrobe now, and… I think you’d enjoy going through it.”

“You just want me out of my clothes, honey, it’s fine to say it,” Lup murmurs, fluttering her lashes over at Lucretia, who snorts into her wine.

“Yeah, sure thing,” she says, reaching out to pat Lup’s hand.

“Aw, you’re cute, miss sassy pants,” Lup laughs, flicking a cherry tomato from her salad at Lucretia.

Lucretia splutters as the tomato bounces off of her tray and rolls into her lap. “Lup! Don’t just—fling food!”

“I did not fling it, I flicked it,” Lup laughs.

“Semantics,” Lucretia sighs, grinning against the rim of her wineglass.

Lup grins back at her and plucks the tomato from her lap, popping it into her mouth. “I’m  _all_  about that nerd talk, Lucy-lu.”

“Says you, who came to sit with me  _because_ of the nerd talk?” Lucretia teases gently.

“Whoops,” Lup laughs. She leans her elbow on the table, looking over at Lucretia, an easy grin spreading across her face. “Caught red handed.”

“You don’t sound very contrite.”

“Not really. I just wanted to sit with you, but you always look so busy, babe. Dinner seems the only time where your nose isn’t buried in work.”

“That’s because I am,” Lucretia chuckles. She takes a bite of her food, watching everyone else mingle below the high table with a fond smile. “I had to make a no paperwork at dinner rule, just like Dav did. Only, only it wasn’t me, Lup. For once, it wasn’t me doing paperwork at dinner. Can you believe it?”

Lup laughs, shaking her head, “I don’t believe you for a second, Lucretia. There’s no way you weren’t up here, parked with your papers. Who got on your case, babe? Was it HR?”

“I only did paperwork in the cafeteria once, because there were tarantulas in my office,” Lucretia says seriously. Her smile softens, and she sighs gently as she sets her knife and fork down, hands folding in her lap. “I… I want to talk to you, about… about what I did when you were gone. Everyone else knows a little, got the pieces along the way, but… It’s a bit selfish, I think, to want to talk about what I did here, but. I want you to know.”  

Lup reaches out and takes Lucretia’s hand in her own, pressing a soft kiss to her knuckles. “I want to know, Lucy! I’ve been worried, you know? Sometimes I see you, and you look lost, you look lonely, but we’re all here!”

“Not everyone,” Lucretia says absently.

She gently tugs her hand away as Lup presses another kiss to her hand, shaking her head. “Lup, not here.”

“You’re my girl, Lucy,” Lup complains. “Why aren’t… I know, I know you’re still hung up about it, but I _meant_ it, Lucretia, I forgive you! I know Taako and Dav are still a little pissy, and okay. Bear’s, like, super pissy, his jeans are all up in a knot, and like. I get it, but me? Luce, you’re my best girl.”

Lucretia closes her eyes slowly, throat tight.  _Best girl, but not best love_ , a small part of her whispers. She reaches out and pats Lup’s hand softly, turning to look at her.

“We’ll talk later,” she promises. “I just… there are some things… I’m still the Director, you know? I have to keep some decorum.”

Lup pouts and Lucretia feels almost bad for upsetting her, but she knows, deep in her heart, that it wouldn’t be right to let Lup continue to publicly flirt and court her. Not when she feels as unsure as she does.

She knows, though, that she’s going to have to let Lup go before Lup leaves her. And it’s hard.

But it’s so easy to distract herself with the preparations for probably the most elaborate gathering the Bureau has put on since its initial launch. Actually, this party is going to put even the initial launch to shame, because back then, there were only a handful of them at best.

More paperwork and more bureaucratic endeavors: They issue invitations to civilians once all the politics and the people who had a direct hand in the battle are invited and arranged for; hundreds of letters, stamped with her signature (she stopped signing by hand about a hundred invitations ago), sent out by Brad and the rest of the HR department. Capacity checks with Lucas, who treats her with an awkward frostiness that makes Avi chatter endlessly to cover the tensions between them.

She makes sure the name-cards are all spelled right, that there’s lodging for all the guests, that everything is actually  _fixed_ for once, that there’s enough supplies, that Garfield—now returned to the Fantasy Costco—doesn’t rack up the prices on his wares with so many people coming onto the base, that her office is in order for when Lord Artemis comes through for the initial meetings that would set up the Bureau’s first endeavor as a relief agency.

She has tea with Magnus and Merle and Angus and Lup, and she—on Lup’s urging—visits Taako and Kravitz in the kitchens. Maybe she cries when she finds him instructing the cooks on how to really cook for a party; maybe it’s because he sighs when she apologizes and holds up a small bag of macarons and says, “For free, just this time, don’t  _ever_ mess with my shit again”.

While she’s not inclined to believe that Davenport and Barry entirely forgive her, she knows that they appreciate the return of their logs and records to them—she knows that losing the ship when they sealed the Hunger was a blow to them, despite it being worth the cost. And she, well, she always kept duplicates, didn’t she?

There’s a difference between forgiveness and understanding, and Lucretia grants them that. 

But none of them let her say she’s sorry more than once.

And it… it is strange. It feels like one by one, each stone on her back is being removed. It is easier to stand upright. The aches and pains that have plagued her for years have lessened as she’s more able to sleep soundly, as her family makes her sit and drink tea and take time to eat, as they draw her out from her office—and encourage others to do the same.

Just like the world has opened up before her, she finds herself opening up as well, for the first time in over two years.

There’s only one last thing that’s keeping her back, one thing that makes her curl into herself and fall silent. It gives her pause in every brush of her and Lup’s bodies, as Lup dances around her like she used to, when Barry is busy and elsewhere. It’s every look that Lucas levels at her behind his glasses, the way he sets his mouth when Lup is around, flirting as shamelessly as she always has.It’s the dark tangle of his hair and the glint in his eyes as he and Avi spread out on the hanger floor, discussing mass transportation options. It’s the mirror that gets passed from Taako to Lucas, then from Lucas to her hand when he catches her alone after a less than frosty afternoon between them.

It’s the apology left unsaid in the back of her throat, because the person she needs isn’t there. The person who needed most to see this, the person who would have delighted in the Bureau’s rebranding, who would have been the most overjoyed in Lord Artemis’ declaration about absolving the council…

She’s not there anymore.

The day of the ball, Lucretia helps put up decorations, silver and blue and white streamers, balloons and glitter and floating lights. Rearranged all the tables the Bureau has (and then some—thanks to Magnus) across the quad.

She almost tears up when she opens up the tablecloth runners, the same crimson as their old robes, and she looks around for Lup, because she recognizes the sentiment as hers. But Lup is busy explaining how to set up magic fireworks with Avi and Lucas, who both look extremely put upon by her dramatic gesturing and flame throwing.

She’ll see her later, she knows. So she busies herself with putting together the decorations, helping set the tables, making sure her hands are on as many things as she can, just to let her soldiers? Employees? No—no, these people are her friends, are her family, exponentially grown when she wasn’t looking, all of the people she handpicked and trained and loved and worried for for all this time. She wants them to know she’s there, she cares, she loves them, that she loves them so, so much.

And they, in return, love her too. Carey and Killian tease her relentlessly for her poor attempt at folding origami napkins, and she has to laugh as well, because Carey can fold them without even looking. Angus and Mavis and Mookie run around, and she scoops Angus up in a hug as he passes, and he laughs—she’s so happy to see him be a child, even if they are getting in the way playing kid cops.

She gets shooed away from the quad a few hours before the first of the civilian guests are supposed to arrive, signaling the start of the gala. She finds Lup waiting for her in the hall outside her office.

“I saw Bradson send you away, so I figured, we’d start our dress-up date,” Lup grins.

“Lup, you’re filthy,” Lucretia laughs. “You’re covered in soot. And grass.”

“It’s not dank grass, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Lup answers, beaming when it earns her another laugh. She offers her arm out, and Lucretia takes it gingerly. “And you’re pretty grimy-looking yourself, Lucy-lu.”

“Are you escorting me to my own room?” Lucretia asks, tapping her bracer to the hidden reader in the door.

Lup makes an elaborate shushing noise and Lucretia rolls her eyes, walking arm-in-arm through her office.

“Wasn’t it sad, to have that behind you all the time?” Lup asks, looking up at the portrait.

Lucretia looks up, and then shrugs. “Most of the time it was spelled so it was just me. Not like anyone could really see it, but…”

“…Babe, that’s even sadder,” Lup murmurs as Lucretia leads them through the hidden door behind it.

“Maybe,” Lucretia answers. “I… Sometimes I needed it; I needed it to kick my ass into gear. I needed to be reminded, so  _I_ wouldn’t forget. Like you guys were watching over me.”

“…could you really have forgotten us?” Lup asks.

Lucretia taps her bracer against a fake panel in the wall five paces down the hallway. At the end of the hallway, of course, is her private office—door open now, to anyone who’d like to come through. The tank is empty, now, and her maps no longer relevant, save for the ones marking the towns decimated by relics. Those will be some of the first that will receive the Bureau’s aid once Neverwinter is restored.

Her bedroom door opens silently.

“Not exactly,” Lucretia answers.

She looks in her bedroom, towards the wide, wide expanse of glass and chrome paneling that looks out towards the Stillwater Sea. The sky is clear, and the sun gleams over the horizon as it sets, bright and sparkling.

“But sometimes,” she says, feeling something twist in her gut at the picturesque view; “I started to move on. And that wasn’t allowable, then.”

Lup looks at her, expression pained and strangely unreadable. “You didn’t make yourself a home here, you made yourself a prison.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Lucretia murmurs. “Now. Would you like a bath or a shower? I have facilities for both, and we can get cleaned up at the same time.”

“You have two bathrooms in here?” Lup asks, eyebrows shooting up.

“I have a guestroom suite attached,” Lucretia says with a shrug. “It’s like a third office now, but. It’s got a bathroom.”

“I’ll shower, then,” Lup says. “Direct me, Director.”

Lucretia rolls her eyes. “That’s the oldest pun on the moon, Lup,” she sighs despite grinning. “That door, there, and down the little hallway. Everything should be stocked.”

She watches Lup saunter out of her room, towards the guestroom. She sighs and gathers the things for her own bath; Lup was right. She’s sweaty and glitter sticks to her forearms from the decorations. A bath is needed, welcomed.

She doesn’t linger long in the tub, just long enough to wash and soak some of the tension out of her shoulders. She tries not to think about the speech she has to make before the party begins in earnest, or the fact that Lup is going to want to dance with her, or how it seemed like she and Barry came to a conclusion with their talks with Kravitz—Barry doesn’t look quite as worried and isn’t disappearing as often.

She dries herself, absently slipping a dressing gown on over her underwear before emerging back into her bedroom. Lup hasn’t returned from her own shower, but that’s to be expected. There’s an endless supply of hot water here, and Lup always liked to lounge around in the shower.

She sits at her small vanity table and starts to prepare herself for the night ahead. She unscrews the lids of her lotions and oils and gathers the few pots of makeup she does use.

Lup comes out a few minutes later, smelling like warm and damp skin and the citrusy soap that Lucretia uses.

“You gonna dress me, because I’m naked as shit,” Lup announces, wrapped in a light blue towel, hair magically dry and curling around her shoulders.

“Glorious,” Lucretia murmurs, dabbing lotion onto her cheeks.

“I know, babe,” Lup answers. “Be even more if I dropped this towel.”

“Oh, Lup,” Lucretia sighs, rolling her eyes. She turns and shakes her head, pointing to the far wall. “That door is the closet, and the armoire over there has underwear in it, top drawer,” she instructs. “Have fun.”

“What, you don’t want me naked? You’re like, sitting in lingerie over there like a fuckin’ star, god,” Lup mumbles, kicking the cream rug as she sulks.

Lucretia looks down at herself and laughs. “It wasn’t intentional,” she admits. “I’m just used to getting ready like this now.”

“What if some of your guards just burst up in here?” Lup asks, meandering over to the armoire.

“No one knows where my bedroom actually  _is_ , aside from, well… Me and you and the people with the blueprints,” Lucretia says, shrugging. “I think Barry might know, since I’m still not sure what all he found up here; I know he saw me run out.”

“Was this _before_ you tried to murder him?” Lup asks. Her tone is light, conversational, but it doesn’t need to be anything but—the blow landed just as Lup wanted it to. “’Cause I felt that ward, even in the staff. Made me dizzy as shit, babe.”

Lucretia pauses. She lays her hands on the vanity, closing her eyes slowly. Half of her wants to shrug and be honest. Half of her flinches like she’s been struck—did Lup mean to be that flippantly cruel? Why was the line  _Barry_ and not  _Taako_?

Because it was Barry, of course.

“At the time,” she says softly, keeping her eyes closed. “At the time, he… was trying to hurt me.”

“Oh, he wouldn’t have hurt you,” Lup mutters, opening the drawer. “You know that. Bear wouldn’t hurt you, Lucretia. Don’t be silly.”

“Barry murdered a good friend of mine,” Lucretia whispers.

“Good riddance, too, since he was trying to kill the boys.”

She wants to argue, wants to tell Lup about the fear she felt, the echo of pain that coursed through her as his lich-form passed through her body, striking her down without an effort. The nightmares she had, the awfulness that was knowing he’d died because of her. She wants to turn and beg Lup for her mercy, to stop waving it in her face that Barry came first.

It’s such an old hurt.  And she’s tired of old wounds. She has new ones she hasn’t even inspected, deep cuts in her psyche she’s never even aired out. She’s barely even grieved. She doesn’t have the time to luxuriate over the pain that comes with loving Lup like she used to. She has to move past that.

“I suppose that’s true,” Lucretia whispers. She opens her eyes and pulls her powder compact towards her, reaching for a brush. “I just… wonder if it was truly necessary, sometimes.”

“Silverpoint’s a bitch,” Lup says harshly. “He did them a favor, making sure he died.”

Lucretia looks back in the mirror to Lup. She’s got her fists balled up against her sides and she’s scowling over at Lucretia so hard that Lucretia thinks Lup’s trying to set her on fire. She remembers, with sudden clarity, that silverpoint was what killed her, in the end. She remembers the agony of the two young women in Goldcliff, transformed now.

In another time, in another world, Lucretia sees herself younger, sees herself cradling another woman in her lap, whispering words of love and salvation. But she was older here, in this world, and crueler, and in the end, her love never saved anyone at all. Certainly not the women she loved.

“He did,” Lucretia agrees. She does agree with Lup, though, and it must show in her voice because Lup relaxes and turns towards the armoire, opening it wider.

“Lucy, geesh, you still won’t function if they don’t match?” Lup asks, looking at Lucretia’s underwear collection, tossing a look back at the set she has on at the moment. Lucretia looks down at the matching nude bra and panties she has on underneath her robe, and then looks back at Lup, where lace pools around her hands, in pale pastels and nudes and in black, a shimmering gold, and several the same silvery blue as her everyday robes.

“It makes me feel put together,” Lucretia sighs, turning back to the mirror as she teases her hair with her fingers. “It’s a habit a hundred years long, so it’s not going to change now.”

“Well, I’m gonna steal this number, for one,” Lup announces, pouncing on the one red set that Lucretia owns. “Hope you don’t like it, it’s mine now.”

“Lup, honey, you can have it,” Lucretia sighs. She focuses on Lup’s reflection in the mirror as she twists braids into the longest portion of her hair, sweeping it back and to the side.

Lup’s shimmies herself into the set, now a vision in red lace and golden skin and pink curls. She’s throws Lucretia’s closet open, standing deep inside of the small room of clothes.

She shifts through them carefully, giving a low whistle at the collection years in the making, all ornate and silk, disappearing further and further back to where the blues give away to other shades.

Lucretia feels a little silly, a little vain, now that everyone is back. She feels like a child who’s been playing dress up in public for a little too long—she’d never worn anything too elaborate before, and now… But Lup is laughing and mumbling exclamations and, well, if Lup is happy, Lucretia supposes that it can’t be that bad.

“This isn’t,” Lup says from the back of the closet; “Hey, Lucy, this can’t be yours? It’s too small, oops… Well, I mean, you’re super cute and curvy but this—”

Lucretia’s heart flips and she turns, mouth falling open softly. Lup holds a floating gauzy gown of white and gold and emerald, and yes, the hemline is too long for Lucretia, the cut too slim. But Lucretia knows that dress like any of her own, remembers how to put it on its wearer and take it off again. Remembers the feel of the silk and chiffon despite forgetting it hung in her closet.

“Oh,” she breathes softly. “I, I forgot that was…  _Oh_ …”

“Lucretia?” Lup questions softly, watching as Lucretia blinks back tears. She sets the dress on Lucretia’s bed and kneels before her, taking her hands into her own. “Lucretia, what, what’s wrong?”

“I… you… I need to tell you something,” she says softly, and finally, the words feel right. The time is right, even though Lucretia wishes they didn’t have to have this conversation before a party, where they have to go and smile and enjoy themselves. She wishes she could spare Lup this—she wishes she could spare herself! — but she has to, before it’s too late.

“I need you to listen, okay? It’s serious.”

“Lup, when you left, my heart… something in it broke. I just… it left me shattered. I thought I was going to die of loneliness, because when you left, no one… nobody noticed me when I disappeared. I—it sounds silly now, after it all, and god, I was young despite it all, young and silly, but I hoped someone would… someone would remember me. Someone on board would remember that I loved you too, but… I… for weeks, I only came out for meals and… no one… Questioned it at all. Barry didn’t come and see how I was holding up without you; he just… kept going out to look. Lup, he and Taako, they never stopped looking,” she says softly. She knows that Lup knows this. But she wants Lup to know one more thing about it.

“Lup… they never asked me if I wanted to help. If I  _needed_  to go look for you, too. And I didn’t feel like I was allowed to look. I wasn’t Taako, your twin and your family. I wasn’t Barry, either, the other part of your heart. I was just… Lucretia. And I wasn’t allowed into their grief, so I… I didn’t grieve. Instead, I started to work.”  

Lup opens her mouth and Lucretia reaches out and presses two soft fingers to her lips. “Shh, I know. Some of that is on me; I  _let_  them. I could have asked to join them. I could have told them that being left out of the search hurt me. But, I didn’t. I didn’t.”

Lucretia sighs, shaking her head and dropping her hand from Lup’s lips, laying them back against Lup’s hand. 

“And when someone, when  _Magnus_  finally… It was too late. It took me three months, just about, to pour through it all. Three months, Lup,” she says, voice tight and shaking. She pauses, hoping Lup understands where the anger and bitterness she has comes from. Why she has to say what she has to say; why she allowed herself the luxury of another lover while Lup was gone.

“I used to wonder what would have happened if anyone had come to see me before then; if they had found you; if you came back to us. I used to… Well, even now! I wonder if we could have come to this sooner, if we could have ended it faster, without all the pain and loneliness. Well. It’s all done, now, really. It’s done, it’s over, and I don’t think we could have dreamed it up better, really.”

She fidgets, fingers twitching in Lup’s grasp. She can’t bear it—she pulls away again to wring her fingers together.  

“No one came until it was too late, and then I was all alone, for real,” Lucretia whispers. “I was all alone, and… Lup, you have some idea of what it’s like to track a Relic. Imagine, seven of them. On all sides, there was still fighting, unrests like this world had never seen. There was a town… My staff… I saw unspeakable things, looking for them. And after a year had slipped by, I got… I was reckless, I was desperate for some sort of progress, and I… I went to Wonderland, Lup.”

Lup sucks in a breath through her teeth, then sighs, whistling at the end. “Lucretia… that place was  _fucked up_. You sent Taako in there, knowing?”

“…yes,” Lucretia whispered. “Thank gods for Barry, thank gods for you.  For  _Cam._ Thank gods they didn’t have to go through it alone. Not like me.”

“You wouldn’t have had to go to that place alone if you hadn’t—”

“I know!” Lucretia shouts, startling Lup. “I know, fuck, fuck I know, Lup! Will you let me—for _once_ , will you _let_ me, let me tell you—just listen to me,” she pleads. “It’s important, it’s important you listen to this, so maybe you can understand what I need to tell you. I haven’t told anyone, what I’m telling you—no one else knows, for this exact reason! ‘Oh Lucretia, if you hadn’t wiped our memories, maybe you would still be in your thirties!’ ‘Oh, Lucretia, if you hadn’t made this stupid mistake, maybe you wouldn’t have ruined our lives!’, and **_fuck_  **‘Lucretia, I need you to please’?— _I know okay, and it’s not just you who suffered! I got hurt too, so stop acting like you and yours were the only people who went through this alone!”_

Lup rocks back on her heels, surprised by Lucretia’s outburst. “Lucy, I—” she starts, but then falters. “Go on.”

Lucretia exhales harshly and rubs her face, shaking her head. “Sorry, I… that was… that wasn’t necessary,” she mumbles. “I didn’t mean to lose my temper with you. I’m sorry, Lup. I know I had it easy, all things considered; I’m sorry.”

“No,” Lup murmurs. “No, it’s… go on, Lucretia. It’s okay.”

Lucretia remains silent for a moment, picking at her nails absently.

“I went to Wonderland,” she picks up. “And that mistake nearly cost me my life. I stumbled away, through other people’s sacrifices, and… It’s oversimplifying it, but I was taken in by a family and nursed back to health. And, and… I stayed there, and for the first time since… Oh, for the first time since the Arcaneum, I had what… what I needed, someone who remembered I was there, who turned to me and asked me, honestly, what I needed, what I wanted. I was part of a  _family_  again. And I reveled in it, I delighted in it. I wasn’t alone anymore; I didn’t have to go it alone. I asked for help. And they gave it, without question or pause.”

“I wasn’t alone,” she repeats, wondrously.  ”The parts of me that hurt, the pieces that were broken when you left, when I realized that for me, there wasn’t much difference between going it alone and staying on the ship… One day I realized they didn’t hurt anymore. One day, I realized I was happy there. It was a lot more complicated than this, but, to make it brief, I just. I just asked for help, and they gave it, and we formed the Bureau, together with the help of some of the friends I made along the way, and with some of her friends, her old contacts, people she knew through her work, people we met trying to track down the Relics.”

She turns and opens the small drawer on the underside of the vanity. She draws out the box she keeps her wedding ring in now, tucked away along with the album and the invitations and the portraits. She touches the tarnished back of the emerald mirror, a small smile on her face as she pulls out a small metal frame with heavy glass.  

“We were lucky that Lucas was developing a form of photography, or we’d never have anything like this. Well, nothing as candid,” Lucretia says. “I didn’t have the time to paint anymore, you see, and we wanted to… Well. We wanted there to be records, even though it would only be us who could see them. We were all a little foolish, I think.”

“You? Thinking record keeping is foolish?” Lup teases, and Lucretia laughs with a small shrug.

“This is from the night we officially formed the Bureau. You know Lucas,” she says softly, handing the picture to Lup. “And you know Brad and Killian. There’s Dav, of course. Beside him is Boyland. Brian, Bain, and Johann; Leon and Avi are in the back over there. There’s me, you know me, and I think, maybe, you’ll recognize the dress, at least?”

“…Is this… is that? Is that Lucas’ mother?”

“Mm,” Lucretia whispers, folding her hands against her knees.

Lup looks up at her, eyes bright with understanding. “She died,” she murmurs. “A  _lot_  of these people died, but… her… Lucy… Oh, Lucy. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, she did,” Lucretia whispers. “About… oh… nine? Ten, it’s ten now, months ago. Yeah.”

Lup looks back down at the portrait, tracing a slim finger against the smooth glass. Her eyes, like Lucretia’s, are fixed on the two women in the center of the group.

Lucretia stands in the center, much like she always seems to, surrounded by people who are all doing their own thing.

Lup understands now, why the candidness of the picture is so important to Lucretia—Lucretia would have never painted herself like this, so caught up in laughter and joy. She’d be too embarrassed to.

In the picture, Lucretia’s smile is wide, caught mid-laugh, her head turned towards the woman who has her arms looped around her, one around her waist, the other slung over her shoulders. Her nose is pressed to Lucretia’s temple, caught in either a kiss or a whisper; Lucretia’s hands are on her arm, their fingers laced at the shoulder. She’s wearing the dress that Lup found—recognizable even with the blurriness of movement and in sepia.

“She’s…And you, you look so happy,” Lup says absently. “And you two were… you both look so happy.”

“Yes,” Lucretia answers softly. “Maureen was so… She was _so_ much. Oh Lup, you remind me of her so much.”  

“It’s the other way,” Lup says faintly, eyelashes fluttering as she blinks rapidly, her mouth trembling. “I’m the OG girl. She should remind you of  _me_.”

Lucretia grins, shaking her head.

“You remind me of her, and she of you,” she repeats. “And… Lup, that’s why… I don’t think we can… right now, I’m…”

Lucretia sighs softly, and looks at her hands, lacing them together against her knees.

“I had a few blissful, uninterrupted years with Maureen before we really got the Bureau going. I’m not proud of this, Lup, but… before that? I stopped looking for you as much. I stopped looking for the Relics as much. The boys were happy, and I couldn’t find Barry, and Dav… well, it was unfortunate, but he enjoyed where he was and I… I was so happy. I was so happy with Maureen and Lucas. But one day, I went to check up on Magnus, and Raven’s Roost was gone,” Lucretia whispers. “And when I went to look for Taako, I found Glamour Springs blaming him for the deaths of forty people. And Merle had left his children and wife behind.”

She sighs slowly. “I resented being ripped back into reality so cruelly. Because with Maureen, I didn’t worry about balancing; I didn’t worry about sharing time. I wasn’t last to know, last to be chosen. We worked well together; she asked what I needed and what I wanted, and she told me when she felt we were lacking and I felt comfortable enough to tell her, too. I was so angry! Why couldn’t they make their lives work for them? After I had so carefully chosen them, crafted them, played conductor to their lives here? Why couldn’t I have this, why couldn’t I have this sort of relationship where for once,  _I_ came first to the other person? Why couldn’t I have made myself forget it all too, and live out my days in ignorant bliss?”  

She looks over at Lup, who, for once, is silent. She meets Lup’s eyes, her dark eyes damp and wide, brow furrowed tightly.

“Maybe it’s cruel to tell you,” Lucretia says, keeping Lup’s gaze. “But I was not Barry. For a while, I was more than ready to let you rest; I was ready to let all of us rest. I wanted what I had with Maureen more than anything in the world. It was everything I ever wanted. I never doubted in those first few years that Maureen loved me. I never woke up to a cold bed; I never woke up to a  _Back Soon_ that wasn’t for me. Maureen loved her late husband, but I never felt like I had to compete against him like I felt I had to with Barry. I was loved, loved more than I’d felt in years, without doubt or question. And Lup, I’d forgotten what it felt like to be loved like that. We were equals, and we loved each other like equals, those first few years.”   

“You… you talk like I don’t love you,” Lup says, cheeks turning pink and blotchy. Her lip trembles before she grits her teeth down, trying to steel herself against the tears. “I  _told_  you, it wasn’t a competition, I told you Lucretia—I love you, you’re just so insecure that you—”

Lucretia holds out her hand again, laying her fingers on Lup’s cheek.

“I know you love me,” Lucretia says. “In your own way, Lup; I don’t doubt that you love me. And I— don’t doubt that  _I_  love  _you_. Because I love you, Lup.”

“But?” Lup prompts. “I’m an ass woman, I know  _buts_.”  

“But, I don’t think that we can pick up where we were when you left. Because there wasn’t anything to pick up,” she says gently. “We were over already, Lup. There was this chasm… that just opened in the Arcaneum. And… we never made any moves to cover it; we just danced around it and I… I still struggle with feeling like I’m less… that I’m not important in the scheme of things.”

“That—that’s not  _true_! You’re the one who decided that, you’re who—you ducked out on us, it’s not  _true_!”

“I know,” Lucretia says, nodding to herself. She laughs, relishing the truth of it. She knows, she knows she can be as important to the people who love her as she makes herself. Knowing doesn’t mean she won’t struggle, won’t meet people who don’t treat her with respect, but she knows, in that moment, that she is important.

“I wish I learned it sooner. I wish it stuck a little harder. I… I struggle with it, every day. I look at the massive swathes of destruction, the towns, the people, all of it, and I think, ‘How could I possibly make a difference against  _that_?’ And then I have to remember that I can only look at it because we made a difference, and we were only  _people,_ seven ramshackle people who were once the best and brightest, and somehow we managed, with all our flaws and wrath and pride and bickering, our story made a difference.”

“There’s no way that anyone is unimportant, when you think about it. All those people who helped us, I used to look at them as collateral, as faceless bystanders in our story. People who had to be checked up on, made sure that they didn’t disturb my circles, names on a file that were to be forgotten when the next whirlwind came through. And I was wrong.”

Lup sniffs hard and turns her head into Lucretia’s palm. Lucretia pets her check with her thumb, rubbing over a smattering of freckles that she looks for patterns in, but the constellations she looks for aren’t Lup’s.

“I love you, Lup, but I’m not ready to go back to loving you yet,” she says softly. “I have things I have to sort through, things I have to settle with myself.”

And the weight lifts off her shoulders. This is what she’s been aching to say, this is why it felt wrong to hold Lup’s hand, why every interaction grated against her skin like gravel. She’s not angry with Lup anymore—sometime between then and the beginning of the conversation, it just evaporated, leaving a shallow pool of a memory in her heart. The anger evaporated, leaving a film of soft hurt and the knowledge that she messed up, all on her own.

“Are you… are you gonna be a dimwit like Magnus and swear it all off?”

“Maybe,” Lucretia says. “I don’t know yet. I know that the way I love you is still… it’s still overwhelming, I still want to see you, I still need to talk to you, I’ll still miss you when you go. But I have so much I have to… I still have to let myself grieve, Lup. I shut it out, I turned it all off, made myself so hollow that I, I barely felt anything. I owe her that; I owe it to you, too.”

“You love her more, don’t you?” Lup asks, petulant.

Luretia takes the portrait from Lup’s hands, shaking her head. “It isn’t a competition,” she whispers. “But your great love is Barry. Mine was Maureen. Maybe we get one love that’s like that, all-encompassing and defining. A love that makes you wake up and see everything differently, feel everything differently. Barry makes you better, Lup; he’s who changed you, not me. Maureen made me want to be a better person, but I failed her—I never took that step to change until it was too late.”

She looks down at the portrait fondly. “That’s not to say we can’t have other loves, because we’re made to love. I believe that, wholeheartedly. I love you despite it all. I know you love me; that you care for me, want to be with me… and I do too, I want to see you; I want to laugh with you, walk with you and hold you. But I don’t… We can have those things, Lup. We can just be us, but right now. I don’t want it to be because it’s romantic. I want it to be because we’re friends and we’re family; because we love each other in only the ways  _we_  can. And because we can love each other, I’m… I’m certain, that as long as we love each other, we can start over as new people. Not as bookish, solemn and shy Lucretia and not as spitfire, untouchable, golden girl Lup. Just us, just Lucretia and Lup, and something new.”

Lup is quiet for a moment, teeth worrying her lip. “How did you fail her?” she asks softly.

“I made the same mistakes I always have. I drew away. I talked myself into thinking that if she knew what I was truly like, truly doing, she would despise me. I put my cause higher than her and thought that she would understand ,” Lucretia says, running her thumb against the glass. “That I didn’t  _deserve_ the happiness I had found, because of what I had done. I told myself I didn’t deserve what I had and so I gave it up.”

“I threw myself into the Bureau, and the more I became The Director, the more it seemed like Maureen really did despise me. The more people I recruited, the more people who failed to come home, the harder it became to find the relics and bear your absence, the angrier I got at leaving my peaceful home behind… The less we saw each other. I neglected her, and she suffered for it. I left her, Lup. I got up one day in our room in the floating laboratory, came to work… and didn’t go back. I didn’t even grace her with a note.”

“I left her, and then I used Fisher’s child to make a redundancy in what I erased, and I didn’t tell her,” Lucretia sighs softly, running her thumb underneath her eyes. “Only, only she’d already been inoculated, you see? She knew she was missing information, and when she came to me about it, I told her it was the only way. She thought there was a different way and she…  She was pushed into a corner, and Lucas did the only thing he thought he could do to help. He found the Philosopher’s Stone, and Maureen used it and she died because of it. And, well, you were around for the rest. If not lucid, then for the Story.”

She looks back up at Lup, only to find her looking away, tears streaking down her face.

“You told me we’d be together, Lucy,” Lup whispers, her voice shaking. “The night I left, you told me, it would still be us, if we did your plan. You wanted to go to the beach. I wanted to see snow. You promised me it’d be us. That, that and Taako, that and Barry, all of that, that’s what kept me sane in that fucking staff. I’d run through it all, my day with Barry, my day with Taako, and you, and you, quiet somber Lucy, all of your smiles and your laughs, and you swearing to me we’d have a future. That we’d have something. I held onto that. And now you’re—you’re telling me we’re  _done_? That you… I don’t blame you for loving someone else, but… Lucretia, I… what if you never want me back? I did something awful to you and I never, I never thought about what it would leave you with. I just did it, worried about Barry and Taako, but never you and. You’re right not to want… to not…to be angry with me. I just thought we’d make it happen somehow.”

Lucretia sets the portrait aside quietly. She slips off of her chair to kneel before Lup, wrapping her arms tightly around her. She presses Lup’s face to her chest, laying her cheek in her hair. “Oh, honey, oh honey, I know,” she whispers. “We can have that, still.”

“Barry and I… we worked a deal out, we’re going to be… we’re gonna be reapers like Kravitz.”

“Well, won’t  _that_  be interesting,” Lucretia snorts, and Lup laughs against her collar.  “Imagine  _you_ , enforcing rules.”

“I don’t know what vacation time looks like,” Lup says, voice tremulous.

“I’m sure you’ll ignore it if it doesn’t suit you,” Lucretia says, sliding her fingers through Lup’s hair. “We have time, Lup. One day, we might be able to be what we were. I just… now isn’t the time.”

Lup draws away and rubs her wrist over her eyes and Lucretia smiles despite herself, reaching out to blot Lup’s face with the hem of her robe.

“I love you,” she says softly, leaning forward to press a kiss to Lup’s forehead. “One day, we can start over. The old woman and death.”

“You’re not that old, Lucy,” Lup whispers. “Not for a long time.”

“No, not for a long time,” Lucretia agrees. “I have too much to do, I have too many ideas. So many dreams—a hundred years of dreams to realize, and I’m going to do it.”

“Ugh, you overachiever,” Lup laughs.

Lucretia smiles at her. “I think that we need to get dressed. If you’d like, you can… you can wear that,” she says, nodding towards Maureen’s dress on the bed. “It… if you wanted.”

Lup looks at the dress, and then shakes her head softly. “I… it means a lot that you offered, but, there’s a black lacy one in there that, with a little lovin’ touch from yours truly, would be killer. Kinda weird to wear your dead… um, a dead lady’s dress, yanno?”

Lucretia snorts, and rises. She walks to the bed and skims her fingers against the dress. “Lup,” she says, “Could you… make this fit me, then?”

Lup beams at her, her hands fitting against Lucretia’s waist. “That, my girl, I can do.”

She presses her lips to Lucretia’s jaw with a dramatic  _mwah_  noise, and Lucretia laughs, swatting her away.

Lup helps transform Maureen’s dress into her size after sheering off a considerable amount of hem on a black dress (and Lup is not a short woman like Lucretia is).

Lup’s fingers are warm and soft as she ties the back of the dress on at the small of Lucretia’s back. Lucretia’s reminded of how she cinched Maureen into it, all those years ago.

She closes her eyes and touches her chest, warmth filling her. “Thank you, Lup,” she whispers.

Lup rests her forehead to Lucretia’s bare shoulders, eyelashes fluttering against her skin. “Lucy, I love you,” she says softly.

“I know, honey,” Lucretia whispers. “Which is why we’re going to do amazing things. Together, you and me, and the rest of us too—we’re all going to do amazing things. We have time again, time to leave a mark. I think can have it all, Lup. Beaches, snowstorms, homes, love.”

She takes Lup’s hand from her waist and holds it over her head and Lup laughs as she spins slowly. They lace their fingers and Lup cups the small of her back with her free hand, turning them in a slow circle.

“We’re gonna,” Lup promises. “Every last thing, we’re gonna do ’em.”   

She pulls Lucretia close to her, arm going around the small of her back, sweeping Lucretia’s center towards her.

“Oh, no, don’t dip me,” Lucretia stammers suddenly, as Lup grins.

Lup leans forward, pressing her body against Lucretia’s, and Lucretia folds back. Lup presses her forehead to hers and Lucretia clutches onto her.

“You’re so cute,” Lup laughs, as Lucretia trembles on her feet.

“I’m going to fall, this isn’t—I fell and busted my ass the last time I waltzed at a party; Maureen just dipped me and I was down, so, so Lup—Please don’t make me fall literally an hour before this party.”

Lup pulls her up and sweeps her into another wide spin, laughing as she leads them in a silent waltz through Lucretia’s room. “You _still_ can’t be dipped? Some things, then, don’t ever change, do they, Lucy-lu?”

Lucretia laughs, tears welling up in her eyes. “I wouldn’t have it any other way, you know?”

* * *

The last time Lucretia had seen so many people focused directly at her was the last night on their home planet. Then, she stammered and blushed and shook—now, now she grins at them all.

“Thank you,” she starts, “Thank you for being part of our story, and thank you for letting us be a part of yours. Today, we’ve brought all of you together again because we’re celebrating a new story—but also the old one. If you will, a toast to those we’ve lost.”

She raises her champagne glass, and everyone mimics her in a wave of sparkling wines and foaming ciders and orange juice, in a certain boy detective’s case.

They all drink, and she thinks of Maureen and Cam and Boyland and Johann, and even Fisher and Junior.

“The Bureau of Balance is defunct now, our mission satisfied. Never again will the horror of the Relics—or the Hunger—mar our world. But the marks still rest on Faerun. Which brings us to this new beginning…”

The speech is easy. She keeps it together as she thanks her friends, and her friend’s friends. As she describes the new purpose of the Bureau, as she welcomes Lord Artemis up to speak.

She keeps it together as she hands out the awards to her employees, and as Lup sweeps her up into a dance after, passing her to Magnus, who picks her up and spins her, who passes her to Carey, then to Brad, then Merle, who passes her to Taako, who twists her in a lively swirl of color and cloak and chiffon until she’s dizzy and laughing as Davenport claps along to Lup’s fiddling—sometime between the hand-offs, Lup had kicked the bard off of the stage and stolen his violin, and Lucretia laughs until her stomach hurts and tears run down her face, part aching nostalgia and part joy. 

It’s so much like one of the parties they’d been to in one of their cycles, a large fair where Lup out-fiddled nearly everyone on the square, her grin wide as they all danced, the Light caught early, early, early, and they’d been in love then, too, and Barry had danced with them both then—she looks as Avi takes her hands and spins her, and Barry raises his glass towards her as she catches his eyes and she laughs again as she's passed along the floor to eventually end up at Lucas, who rolls his eyes as dramatically as he can even as he takes her hands, and yes, yes, yes, there are so many new beginnings starting from their old stories. 

She never thought she’d have this, and now that she does, she’s not much inclined to let it go.

Never again.

**Author's Note:**

> Gag that didn't make it into the final draft--The IPRE gang's superlatives are the only ones Lucretia didn't pull from a hat. The only highlight worth mentioning:  
> Lup's is "Loch Ness Monster (Least likely to be found)"


End file.
